The prison inmates' strike and its (non)-coverage in the U.S.

Since September 9, 2016 there is an ongoing strike in this country, of prison inmates protesting slave labor and conditions in prison.

The inmates are protesting that they are either paid much less than the minimum wage for work essential for running the prisons - as well as for the for-profit prison industry - or not paid at all.

Since the for-profit prison industry puts "lockup quotas" into contracts with state governments, and those who are caught in the hairs of the criminal justice are predominantly the poor and the minorities - mass incarceration in the U.S., mostly through plea bargains, is clearly a plan to obtain people's labor for free, making them work for free in ghastly conditions not subject to judicial review.

The inmates are protesting, through a strike, conditions in prison (of life, guard brutality and dismal medical care) - because their legal remedy to seek justice from courts regarding prison conditions is cut off by: 

• general discrimination tactics against pro se litigants;
• Prisoner Litigation Reform Act (requiring to first exhaust "administrative remedies", complaining to the same prison officials who violate prisoners' rights, thus facing retaliation, and the statute of limitations for exhaustion of remedies is 15 DAYS);
• the federal judicial system where judges consider everything, including not providing pain medication for cases with broken bones, a violation not reaching constitutional dimensions (I remember  from my research as an intern for Prisoners Legal Services of New York, that the "no pain medication for broken bones is not a constitutional violation" decision was made by magistrate Randolph Treece, now retired, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York);
• the statute that allows judge to dismiss pro se federal civil rights lawsuits of indigent (poor) litigants, especially inmates, before the lawsuit was even served,
• and the subsection of the same statute that allows judges to cut off prisoners' right to sue if they sued several times, and their lawsuits were dismissed (by judges who do not feel, arbitrarily, that violations reached constitutional dimensions).

While many lay commentators on topics of prison conditions and medical care express an idea that those in prison must provide for themselves or go hungry and without medical care, first, there is an 8th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and, where the sentence imposed by a court of law in accordance with a statute is loss of liberty, prison system cannot add to that:

• loss of dignity;
• loss of medical care, or
• slave labor.

Note that not only inmates are denied medical care, but also their unborn children who are, I guess, subject to some kind of weird punishment for crimes of their mothers.

The only major media source that has reported on the prisoners' strike is a foreign source - "The Guardian", a respectable British newspaper.

Within the U.S., the strike is subject to an apparent mass media boycott and is being reported only by activist sources, bloggers and social media.  The only major media source that so far reported the strike was The Wall Street Journal that reported that prison authorities are not yielding to prisoners' demands and are not providing any concessions so far.

Actually, the strike is in its second week now.

The strike reportedly involved 40 prisons in 24 states where inmates refused to report for work - and facilities responded by lockdowns.

I guess, in a country with mass incarceration, slave labor and conditions of that mass incarceration is not a newsworthy subject.